Radio
by Cyprith
Summary: The Vaultie turned everything upside-down with crooked smile and a half remembered joke before running off after ghosts, leaving them behind with only the static on the radio. Gob/OC
1. Chapter One

Title: The Squishable John

Author: Kytten

Pairing: Gob/Vault Dweller

Rating: PG13

Disclaimer: I do not own Fallout.

Summary: Gob had always reminded Nova of a radiated puppy. And the new Vault Dweller certainly didn't help matters. Especially not with her running off to chase ghosts, leaving them behind to listen to the static of the radio.

Author's Note: Gob needs more love. -.- He gets beat on all the time at work and even if you find his mother, you can't tell him about it. What kind of a life is that, I ask you?

* * *

Gob was staring at the door again with that look in his eyes that always managed to make Nova feel guilty and depressed without ever fixing itself on her.

"Honey, she's not due back for another week," she said gently, pulling away from her spot at the wall.

A lot of things in this world depressed the hell out of her, but the stubborn, useless hope in Gob's eyes was right up there at the top. Nova didn't need to specify who _she_ was, just as she knew without asking why Gob kept sneaking glances at the door. That vault dweller. Bat shit crazy and strangely world savvy in a way that was all together off putting, she'd walked through the door in a cloud of dust, smiled at Gob and that had been it.

"The radio's working again," he muttered, avoiding her eyes in favor of a spot on the bar. "She said she'd fix it."

And if she'd said she'd hung the moon, Gob would probably believe it. Nova sighed and sat down on the edge of the bar, thinking of all the things that could have happened but hadn't yet. One of these days the Vaultie wasn't going to come back. Gob didn't want to believe it, but it was still a fact of life. People died. People got screwed over. People got kidnapped and sold off as slaves or found greener pastures and forgot all about the people they used to know.

"Takes time to cross the globe, you know," she said instead, moving to sit on the edge of the bar. "And the radio only came on yesterday."

Gob only shook his head, scabbed knuckles going white at the edges of his towel.

"She's okay," he insisted quietly, answering a question she hadn't asked. "She'll be alright."

That was another thing at the top of Nova's list. That quiet desperation in his voice put a knife through her heart her every time. The Vaultie had promised she'd come back, so she'd come back. He believed that in a way Cromwell believed the bomb was the answer to everything. It was black and white.

_She'd promised._

Times like this Nova wished that damned Vaultie would have never showed up. Things were bad before, yeah, and Gob didn't have a hell of a lot to look forward to, but he never made himself sick like this. It was getting to where she could almost time his moods. How long had it been since Three Dog mentioned his Good Fighters? How long since he'd told _another_ story about the stupid signal dish? How long before Moriarty would notice and say something stupid that would make Gob even more miserable?

That was another thing she hated. Moriarty and his fucking _comments_.

"She can take care of herself," Nova agreed at last, wondering if she should take the cloth from Gob before he wore a hole in the bar. Last thing the poor guy needed was to be stuck here another fifteen years on top of eternity, paying Moriarty for a new bar. "But, baby, the longer you stare at the door, the more customers are gonna think you finally lost it."

_And the more Moriarty is going to take it out on you_, she thought, but didn't say it. Gob didn't need reminded. Hell, the longer he could lose himself in his cheerful, black and white fantasy the better. Wasn't like he had anything else going for him, but _damn_ did that girl really have to go and start something she could finish?

"I'm just watching the door," he said, finally releasing his death grip on the wash rag. "Nobody'll notice. It's not like anybody looks at me."

It was meant as a joke, but the humor was long gone. Like pre-war velvet with all the fuzz worn away, the only thing left was a scaled, barren patch that didn't do all that much to cover the bitterness underneath.

_Poor baby, _she thought and stifled it. Gob was a grown man. Hell, he could easily be twice her age, and yet somehow he always reminded her of a puppy she'd had as a kid. The poor thing had bumbled after her everywhere, utterly clueless and brimming with hope even when its ears had fallen off.

"She'll be back, sweetheart." Nova smiled, taking a cigarette from the pack under the bar as she slipped from the counter. "Worrying about her won't do any good."

Gob nodded, pointedly looking anywhere but the door. Next to him, the radio crackled cheerfully, the song giving way to a drawn out howl.

"_Hey, all you folks fightin' the Good Fight out there. This is your disc jockey Three Dog, coming to you live from the wreckage of D.C. thanks to a lovely lady from Vault One-Oh-One. Here's looking at you, kid, with a little number called Crazy He Calls Me by Billie Holiday. Keep safe out there."_

Nova watched from her spot at the wall as the tension eased out of Gob's shoulders with the first few notes of the song. It took awhile, but eventually the melancholy slipped from his face and he stopped fidgeting long enough to sit down, staring through the counter as if it wasn't there.

"_The difficult I'll do right now," _the radio crooned between the static. "_The impossible will take a little while."_

Nova sighed. It was going to be one of those days.

*

Or rather, it was going to be one of those weeks.

Moriarty was in fine form today and intent on packing as much misery into the next twenty-four hours as he possibly could. So far, he was setting a new record. The sudden need for the saloon to be _spotless_ wasn't bad. Nova could even deal with the no-smoking rule Moriarty insisted on enforcing ever since he'd bought that damned sign from yesterday's traders. It wouldn't be the first time she'd gone a day without a cigarette. And it certainly wouldn't be the first time Moriarty had smacked her around because he didn't have anything better to do.

But he didn't have to go and take the radio.

Gob was now sporting an ugly bruise across one cheek and a sullen, miserable look in his eyes as he glanced between the empty radio corner and the closed door. A few tinny strands of propaganda drifted out from behind Moriarty's door and Nova scowled. One of these days some asshole was going to come through here with a gun and a grudge and Moriarty was going to say something stupid and get his head shot off. And knowing Gob's luck, he'd probably be the one to get blamed.

"You okay, honey?" she asked him, keeping her voice low enough that Moriarty couldn't hear it over the noise the Enclave station broadcasted. Hell, he probably wasn't even listening. If she knew him, he chances were he had the radio sitting right in front of the door, blasting stupidity just to torment them.

"I'm fine." He looked up briefly and met her eyes for a second before glancing at the door and back down at the bar. "You need something?"

"Don't let Moriarty get to you," she said, settling her hand lightly over his. "He's just being an asshole because he can."

Gob only shrugged and picked up the towel he used to wipe down the glasses.

"I'm used to it."

That was another one of those things that set Nova's teeth on edge. Way up there at the top of the list, right smack next to Moriarty, was the way Gob took his bruises as a fact of life. As long as she'd known him, he'd always assumed people would beat him. Hell, he hadn't been proven wrong until that Vaultie came along.

Nova sighed, ran a hand through her hair and muttered something nasty about nothing in particular. She didn't like the Vaultie. The girl gave her the creeps something fierce and she _really_ didn't like seeing the different gun on her hip every time she came in. Once—and while Nova wasn't an expert on guns, she knew a Fat Man when she saw it—the kid had come in with a fucking rocket launcher strapped to her back. But as strange as she was, at least she'd know what to say to cheer Gob up. Hell, so long as she showed up, Gob would be happy and after that it wouldn't take much more than a smile in his direction.

"We wouldn't get word one way or another for a few days yet, you know," she said, sneaking a look back at Moriarty's door and furtively lighting a cigarette. "It's not like we need the radio today."

Gob only shrugged, not looking at anything as he wiped down a glass.

"I'm not holding my breath anyway," he muttered at last, setting the mug down for another. It was a blatant lie, especially obvious in the way he glanced at the door soon after with a sort of broken wistfulness in his eyes. "It's not like she has a reason to come back or anything. She might have gone to Rivet City. Probably better for her there anyway."

Nova took a long drag on her cigarette and leaned back against the bar so that she could look at Gob and the door behind him.

"Have you ever been?"

He shook his head and while his expression didn't change, Nova watched his knuckles turn a bloodless white on the tankard's handle.

"They don't like ghouls there." He said, forcibly relaxing his grip on the mug and setting it down like a sleeping child, still only half clean. "Course, they don't like ghouls anywhere. Don't wanna be reminded, I guess."

Nova didn't know what to say to that. Hell, there wasn't anything that _could_ be said to that. It was bare boned truth. No pleasantries, no fluff. Just a fact of life. No one wanted to be reminded what they'd look like when they died. No one wanted a walking, talking reminder of the atrocities waiting for any unlucky idiot wandering the wastes on his last Rad-X.

The Vaultie would know what to say though. She laugh, probably do that flirt-without-flirting thing she was so good at and tell some story about a Brahmin in a Nuka-Cola factory that had nothing to do with anything and everything to do with distraction.

Nova didn't have stories like that. She could tell a story about a John with a detachable john, but Gob didn't really need reminded of sex or missing body parts. If she sat for awhile putting all the fragmented memories together, she could probably tell a pretty good story about the cross dressing ex-Raider she'd met in Canterbury Commons.

And Gob would smile, nod and try not to stare at the door.

Fucking Moriarty.

*

At least he'd given the radio back. Or, at least, some time between midnight and three the radio had reappeared on the bar counter along with a new bruise riding high on Gob's jaw. Nova didn't know what to think about it, but knew better than to ask. Hard to pretend everything was just peachy if some idiot kept poking the wound, after all.

"I swear to fuckin' _god _they're playing that damn song every time the radio goes on_,_" Moriarty announced, swaggering out from the back room. "Turn that shit _off."_

But Gob didn't move from where he was standing, head down, feet apart, staring at Moriarty with a dangerous look in his eyes. And Nova couldn't help but notice that there were four evenly spaced bruises along one side of the bastard's throat turning an ugly shade of purple in the dusty morning light.

"Or turn the fuckin' thing down at least," he amended with something between a leer and a scowl, pulling a pack of smokes from his front pocket as he ambled towards the door. "I'm sick to death of hearin' it."

Gob reached out and prodded the volume knob so lightly not even a bat—if they still had bats—could tell the difference. But Moriarty nodded like he'd gotten his way and popped a cigarette between his lips.

"Tha's better." And in something that was most definitely _not_ a retreat, swept out the door.

Nova looked between the door and Gob in something close to wonder, pulling out a cigarette of her own.

"You get into a fight last night, honey?" she asked because she couldn't help it, moving across the room stand next to him. "He's acting like somebody finally gave him a taste of his own."

Gob shrugged, flashed something that might have been a smile half a century ago and glanced at the door.

"It's my radio," he said as if it were the answer to everything, cleaning the already spotless bar. Nova waited for the rest of it, but the rest never came and she ended up watching Gob clean in silence until her cigarette burned down to ash.

She wanted to say something to break the silence, but Gob was on a planet of his own, humming along to the song crackling over the radio speakers.

"_And that was Anything Goes by Cole Porter, singing out across the Wastes for that crazy little kitten from Vault One-oh-One," _Three Dog announced in the rhythmic sing-song that meant hell would hold off a while longer._ "All you folks out there keep fighting the Good Fight and don't go feeding the yao guai. Now here's a song by Bob Crosby and the Bobcats—Happy Times." _

Nova watched Gob relax like clockwork. Watched him fiddle with the volume while sneaking glances at the door like she'd be coming through at any moment with that crazy ass grin of hers and a bag full of things to share. Wondered what sort of fucked up world they lived in and leaned back against the bar for lack of anything better to do.

She'd come back.

She'd promised.


	2. Chapter Two

A/N: Not that it's important, but I changed Gob a little. Pretend he has more hair than he does, but that it's short and that his eyes are clear and blue.

Chapter Two

*

She wasn't coming back.

Nova knew better. She knew that people died all the time in the Wastes and that chances were that crazy ass Vaultie would be one of them sooner rather than later. She knew the world outside Megaton was swarming with mole rats and muties and a half dozen other things just waiting for a good kill. She knew that the kid had the odds stacked against her and that like to not, one of these jaunts across the globe would be her last.

But she didn't want to believe the kid wasn't coming back.

It'd been one week, three days since the radio had come on. Gob had long since exhausted the radio's slim repertoire of comforts. He had the station set so perfect the signal barely crackled at all, the antenna positioned towards a particular crack in the siding, the volume loud enough to be heard stacking crates.

It wasn't helping much anymore.

Nova watched as he moved from one end of the bar to the other, resorting, recleaning, restacking. Moriarty, it seemed, had finally got the hint and had stayed secluded in his office typing away for most of the week. It was for the best. In the mood he was in, Gob would have probably reorganized _him_ and Simms didn't need that kind of mess on his hands.

He was on to the cash register now, moving the caps and scrap metal from one end of the safe to the other, counting and recounting in between staring at the door. Nova sighed and rounded the bar, setting a gentle hand on Gob's shoulder.

"Come on, honey," she coaxed, easing him back and away from the register. "Leave it go. You're running yourself ragged for no reason."

A muscle twitched in Gob's jaw, sliding under the surface of the fading greenish bruise.

"Leave me alone, Nova," he muttered, avoiding her eyes. "You don't understand."

"I know," she said and she did. She knew Gob could count all his friends in the world on one hand and that working here he'd stared down the barrel of more sawed-off shotguns than a Jet-high Raider in Rivet City. She also knew that the Vaultie was the only one who hadn't bothered to notice what the others had. "But sweetheart, this isn't doing you any good."

Gob only shrugged, staring at the door as the radio crackled through a miserable excuse for a song.

"It was only supposed to take a week."

And in the end, it all came back to this. Nova sighed, feeling like they'd had this conversation eighteen times already and knowing most of them had only been in her head.

"Things happen. She'll be back."

"She promised." There it was, the root of all their problems murmured so softly Nova would have missed it if she hadn't been listening.

_She'd promised. _

Fucking Vaultie.

"She'll get here," Nova soothed, squeezing Gob's shoulder through the coarse fabric of his shirt. "I don't think she's that easy to keep down, honey."

Keep down. Fifteen years ago, Nova would have laughed at herself, talking to a grown man like a child missing a toy. _Killed_ was what she wanted to say and even unsaid it hung in the air between them like radiated dust after another of Moira's explosions. The Vaultie was _dead_. She was out in the Wastes without a Chem or Rad-X to her name, rotting away with a bullet in the head. She'd been squashed by a Super Mutant or killed by her crazy ass father if she'd finally found him, but she wasn't coming back. Just like the hundred others Vaulties who'd wandered into the Wastes. Just like all the other Wastelanders who wandered too far from home. And life would keep on going just like it always had. Nothing _ever_ changed.

Except Nova couldn't believe that. Not with Gob looking at that door like it held the answers to the universe, knowing the Vaultie would return just because she'd promised.

"She'll be here," Nova told him, reaching over his shoulder to slide the register closed. "She promised."

*

"_Hellooo, all you Wastelanders fighting the Good Fight out there. This is Three Dog and _you_ are listening to Galaxy News Radio, coming to you _live_ from Washington, D.C. thanks to Little Miss One-oh-one. Everybody give a big round of applause to the Vaultie and we're off to the news. The super mutant threat in the D.C. area appears to be dwindling. The Brotherhood of Steel…"_

Nova closed her eyes, listening as the radio droned on, talking about vaults and mutants and death tolls. She didn't need to see to know that Gob's knuckles had gone white on the edge of the bar and that he was staring at the radio like the kid herself was going to pop out of it any second.

One week. Five days.

She'd given up trying to coax Gob away from the radio. Where before a mention of the Vaultie up and fighting had the tension easing out of Gob's broad frame, they were making it worse now. Three Dog only had so many stories about her. The radio broadcaster, the bomb, and the story about Arefu—the last of which had amused the Vaultie to no end.

_"All I did was talk to some creepies in a subway. Nobody even shot at me!" _she'd laughed, nearly dropping her Nuka-Cola. "_I swear, the worst thing I ran into was a mole rat drunk off it's head on some weirdo's still. The poor thing couldn't _see_ straight, let alone bite me. Hostages my ass."_

They'd laughed at that together, sitting around the bar with elbows almost touching, sneaking glances at Moriarty's door as they boasted fantastical achievements in mocking, horrible accents.

Nova opened her eyes with a sigh, staring around the bar at the same old weathered faces. _Same assholes, same shit, _her father used to say and Nova was startled into smiling at that. It'd been years since she'd thought of her father at all, longer still since it'd been something worth smiling about.

She turned to mention it to Gob and paused, the smile dying. He wasn't looking at the door or counting caps or washing something with the furious, pent-up energy he'd been throwing off all week. He was just sitting there...

Looking at his hands.

Nova's heart broke for him then, seeing the core deep loathing and helplessness in that stare. She couldn't imagine what he was thinking. Couldn't imagine what it would be like to watch the flesh peel off her body—to see her face, _her livelihood_, melt away like acid on steel. How a person could live through that and still turn out as sweet and gentle as Gob astounded her.

She knew without a doubt that were their situations reversed, she'd have shot herself by now.

"Hey," she said, shaking the thoughts off. "You eat today, honey?"

Gob looked up like he was surprised to see the world still standing, his eyes going to the door long before they met hers.

"What's today?"

Nova smiled and stood, crossing the room with a wary glance towards Moriarty's rooms.

"I think that answers my question. Why don't you get something to eat? I'll watch the bar awhile."

But Gob didn't move, only shook his head, running rough-scabbed fingers through his patchwork buzz-cut.

"Moriarty'll kill me."

"No, honey, I think you scared him off awhile." Nova smiled, settling a hand on his shoulder. Used to be she could pull him out of his moods with a friendly touch. "He'll keep his hands to himself until those bruises of his fade."

She'd meant it as encouragement, but Gob looked away with something like guilt flashing in those summer blue eyes of his.

"I just wanted my radio back. He didn't have to go and say that about her."

_Oh_. Nova blinked at the quiet admission, think that suddenly the bruises on Moriarty's throat made a hell of a lot more sense. Gob hadn't snapped at the loss of his radio. He'd snapped because Moriarty couldn't resist making one of his little _comments_ about the wrong person_._

Nova sighed and ran a hand through her hair.

"Probably best he thinks it's about the radio or he'll give her grief when she gets in."

Gob nodded slowly, looked at the door and looked at his hands.

Nova glared, cursing Moriarty in as many ways as she could think to curse him before offering Gob a comforting smile.

"She'll be back, honey. Don't worry about her."

"Lot of… _things_ out there though, you know?" he said and Nova realized this was the most he'd spoken all week. "She could have run into trouble or something. Hell, maybe she found some place she liked better."

Nova paused, trying to think faster than the downward spiral of Gob's mood.

"Well," she drawled, staring at the door herself as she bought time. "She was going down to D.C., wasn't she?"

Gob nodded, silent, still staring at his hands.

"And the Underworld's real close to there, isn't it?"

The change wasn't immediate—more like an unbroken light bulb warming up after half a decade in the dark. But slowly, barely noticeably, a smile spread across Gob's face.

"Yeah," he said at last, the tension draining from his shoulders. "Maybe."

*

Nova was nestled into her niche in the wall, the setting sun painting a warm latticework across her closed eyes as she dozed in the sullen buzz of the bar. It was quiet enough that she could almost pretend it was just them. Her and Gob in a bar of their own—a quiet little shack-and-tavern on the edge of town—no weeks to count or half broken promises to remember.

"Hi there!" And then the illusion shattered, Moira Brown careening through the door, the smell of napalm and chemicals lilting in her wake. "It's really bright out there today, huh? Looks like a bomb went off or something. Hey, you never know, right? At least it's not ours!"

An expression crossed Gob's scarred face as close to a scowl as she'd ever seen it. He'd been expecting someone else.

"What do you need?"

"Oh, a couple of stimpacks, please." She smiled but didn't look him in the eyes. "I thought I had a whole stock left, but apparently I used them up—for the guide, you know—and Jack happened to bump into my workbench on his way in, and well, I don't think he'll be sitting down for awhile, if you know what I mean."

Nova winced and slipped backwards into the shadows of the curtained bathroom—anything to keep from presenting herself for conversation. It wasn't that she had anything especially against the inventor, but she couldn't help _noticing_ things. Little things—far more subtle than sawed off shotguns—but they bothered her anyway. Especially the way Moira was very careful never to let so much as the hem of her sleeve touch Gob, despite the constant staring and words like _fascinating _and _severe radiation _occasionally slipping into the stream of one-sided conversation.

Behind Gob, Moriarty's door swung open and the man swaggered out, bleary eyed and foul tempered.

"What the hell's all the damn racket for, 'ey? I'm I runnin' a saloon or a fucking—" he stopped mid-sentence, fixing Moira with a rum-rimmed stare.

"Oh hell, it's you," he muttered. "Heaven help the sinners."

With that he turned, ducking into the kitchen to grab a pint of whisky and an oddly luminescent Nuka-Cola from behind the fridge before staggering back into his room.

Moira frowned after him with a disapproving shake of the head.

"You know, I'm no expert," she said, taking her chems gingerly from Gob's outstretched hand, "But I've done a little research on the effects of alcohol on higher brain functioning and let me tell you, it's _not_ pretty."

Nova closed her eyes, wishing the woman would just _go away_ before Moira started effecting _her_ higher brain functioning and tried to listen to the radio instead. Three Dog was talking about nothing in particular, something about friendly animals and _don't try this at home_—probably another inflated story about Gob's Vaultie, judging by the change in his voice.

It wasn't cheerful exactly, but the thought of her slipping down into Underworld had certainly made his day.

And then, belatedly, Nova realized her wording and opened her eyes in surprise.

Since when had the kid been _Gob's_ Vaultie?

*

Night drifted in like ash, blanketing Megaton by degrees until even their most determined drunks staggered off in the vague direction of home. Nova was sitting on the bar counter, wedged between the wall and a stack of empty crates Gob hadn't sold off yet, dozing through the drone of the radio. Even Three Dog sounded like he was falling asleep at his post. Soon he'd turn the station over to the same list of songs that always played at night and do whatever he did when he wasn't fighting his hackneyed version of the Good Fight.

_"No news is good news when it comes to the wastes, and that's it for our show today, kids. If you see our knight in shining vault-suit out there, give 'er a pat on the back and wish her good luck for me." _A howl ground through the static, but it was worn thin and lacking its usual charm. "_Goodnight, Wastelanders, and now for some music."_

Nova yawned, watching through lidded eyes as Gob moved around the bar, securing removables and locking up, thinking that if they'd been anyone else, anywhere else, things would have been a hell of a lot different. She liked watching the play of muscles through the fabric of his shirt. And those hands of his were something else—broad palms and long, clever fingers. Times like this she wondered what he'd been like before the bombs went off.

Not a solider—he was far too gentle for that. Though maybe… maybe once upon a time, when there'd still been men to draft and some semblance of a choice, Gob had signed up himself. Fighting the Good Fight.

And then the world had gone to shit.

Nova closed her eyes again, pushing the thoughts away. Dwelling on the past was right up there with Moriarty on the list of things that depressed the hell out of her. No good wondering what could have happened, after all. She was still a whore stuck in a dead end town with a debt to pay and Gob was still a sweetheart suffering for a lifetime of sins he'd never committed.

"_Maybe you'll think of me when you're all alone," _the radio crooned, the static quiet for the moment. "_Maybe the one who is waiting for you will prove untrue. Then what will you do?"_

Something was wrong with the sound though, she realized, opening her eyes slowly. Too many voices. Or else the sound was bouncing off the walls until it seemed like the metal was singing.

Or, she realized with a smile, somebody _outside_ the metal was singing.

"Hey, honey?" she called, glancing over at Gob. "Don't lock up just yet. I think you got a visitor."

"_Maybe you'll sit and sigh, wishing that I were—_goddamn piece of shit. I pick up radio signals on my _fillings_ better than—_come back again and maybe I'll say 'Maybe'."_

Gob stopped and turned towards the door, a grin splitting his face like a sunrise.

_She'd promised. _


	3. Chapter Three

Chapter Three

*

Nova watched Gob as the door swung open in a blast of dust and heat, the Vaultie billowing inside with the wind, still prodding the gadget on her arm.

"You're back," Gob said, grinning like there wasn't a damn thing wrong in the world. "You okay? You need anything? I can get you a drink—or a stim-pack if you want."

"I'm fine," she laughed, slinging the strange sniper-rifle down from her shoulder and unbuckling the straps to her pack. "I was careful. Like I promised."

Nova smiled slightly from her corner, but the smile was a pained, twisted beast. She was glad the Vaultie was back. The kid made Gob happy and gods knew he wasn't happy very often anymore. It was just as well he had somebody left that could make him smile.

But that didn't mean she had to like the kid, because it was downright fucking _cruel_ what she was doing. Making Gob promises like that—promises she'd be back, promises she wouldn't get her stupid head blown off, promises of _one day_ like the day would come when Gob didn't look like he'd lost a fight with a radiated lawnmower.

And then the Vaultie went and did something Nova didn't expect.

She hugged him.

It wasn't a friendly sort of hug. It wasn't the kind of hug that usually accompanied a greeting or the kind of hug you gave to a friend who had wandered in the Wastes a few years back. And Nova wasn't a romantic—not much cause for it in her line of work—but _that_ was an _embrace_. An eyes-closed, tucked in the crook of a neck, missed you too goddamned much to say _embrace_.

It was only when the muscles in her jaw began to protest that Nova realized she was grinding her teeth. Making herself stop, she unclenched her fists with the force of will usually reserved for childbirth and painted on a smile.

_Fucking Vaultie._ Setting Gob up for a goddamned heartbreak—like he hadn't had his heart broken enough in the last _century_. And the worst part was Nova knew she didn't even give a shit. Because a month from now, maybe two, she'd be on to the next adventure, to the next town and the next Wastelander that caught her eye and it wouldn't be a ghoul with a sweet, ruined smile because nobody was _that_ fucked up. And Gob would pine for _months _before he resigned himself to the fact that she _wasn't_ coming back, promise or not and Nova knew there wasn't a goddamned thing in the world she could say to Gob then that would make that kind of betrayal any better.

"I'm about dead on my feet," the Vaultie said at last, pulling away with a sheepish grin, "but I wanted to see you before you closed tonight."

Gob nodded and seeing the look in his eyes, Nova knew it was far too late to avert disaster. He was head-over-heels with so much fucking _hope_ there wasn't a thing in the world she could do to protect him.

Slowly, Nova got up from the bar with the blank-cheerful face she used on her Johns the morning after—repeat customers were everything in Megaton—and crossed the room to stand next to them.

"You're late, kid," she said, keeping her voice carefully neutral. "Said you'd be back last week. We were worried."

Gob had been worried anyway. And she'd been worried for Gob. All that wishing that the Vaultie'd come back just to see a smile back on Gob's face, and now Nova wished the kid would have just stayed away. If she'd turned up dead somewhere—if she'd died fighting the Good Fight—then Gob could have had his perfect black-and-white _what if_ fantasy without ever worrying about some—

"I know," she said, cutting through Nova's furious inner tirade. "I'm really sorry. But I got tied up in Underworld."

She laughed, a husky chuckle that could have melted Jericho, let alone poor Gob.

"Well, not _literally_ tied up. That would have been fun, but," she brightened and turned to Gob, her fingers twining through his seemingly of their own volition. "I met your mom."

*

Nova hated that woman.

It wasn't that she was jealous. No, she and Gob were doomed from the start. Hell, the first time they'd met, she'd screamed like a little girl. Granted, it had been Moriarty's fault and there was the whole _zombie at two in the morning_ thing to contend with, but the fact of the matter remained that first impressions never went away. She'd screamed. She'd been ready to claw his eyes out and run for the door.

But the Vaultie had smiled. She'd looked at Gob like she was hoping his clothes would spontaneously combust _and Gob had noticed_.

At least Moriarty didn't bother him with her around. She got a dangerous look in her eyes when he got loud and Vault-dwellers were notoriously bat shit. That and the fact that she had a fucking sniper rifle strapped to her back more often than not and a story about picking off Super Mutants from Three Dog's balcony.

Anybody who could snipe a Super Mutant at that kind of distance wasn't the sort of person you wanted catching you in the middle of the night on a smoke break.

Nova watched as Gob glanced towards the door for the eighty-second time that morning with a hopeful smile tugging at the corners of his lips and winced. Slowly, she pushed away from the wall and made her way behind the bar, sitting down next to the shelf with the cigarettes.

"Hey," she began. "About the Vaultie…?"

Gob shook his head with something that might have been a laugh.

"She has a name, Nova."

And it was funny how they only used it when she was around to here. Nova sighed and ran a hand through her hair. The smile faded from Gob's face and he frowned, leaning back against the bar counter.

"Something wrong?"

Something was wrong. Something somewhere along the line had gone horrible wrong with the world at large and there was no way to fix it. But Nova was going to try because popular as she was, she could count all her friends in the world on one hand too and Gob was one of them.

"I'm worried about you," she said at last, choosing her words carefully and gauging herself by the look in Gob's old summer eyes. "The kid… she's not the kind of girl that's going to hang around, you know? And I'm not saying this to… hell, I don't know why I'm saying this, Gob, except I don't want to see you get hurt."

"She'll come back," Gob said softly, running his fingers through his own short cropped hair with a look that broke her heart. "She—"

"Promised?" Nova finished, wishing he would see reason and knowing it was impossible even as she tried. You could break a lot of things, but hardly ever hope. Optimism wasn't the kind of disease that could be cured with a little logic. "Things happen, Gob. People change. Hell, _she_ changes. She's like a child playing… _hopscotch_ in the Wasteland. What happened to her grand quest? Is she even looking for her dad anymore?"

Gob frowned, turning away from her to wipe down the already spotless bar.

"She found him," he told the fake woodwork. "Said she passed a letter to him through some doctor in Rivet City."

"And that's it?" Nova pressed, trying her damndest to be gentle about it. "Gob, she got _bored_. Finding her father was all well and good for a while. And then it got hard and she _quit_."

"She didn't quit," he snapped with surprising vehemence, stopping to glare at her over his shoulder. "She wanted to know he was alive—wanted him to know where the hell she was—and she did that and now she's done. She's not…" the anger faded abruptly, replaced by a cracked and stubborn faith. Quietly, he finished, "She's not the person you think she is."

There was nothing she could say that was going to change his mind and seeing that determination in his eyes, Nova found she didn't want to. Let him have his hope.

Hell, it was probably the only thing getting him through the day.

"If you say so, baby," she said at last, touching his arm. "I just want you to be careful."

"I'm tired of being careful, Nova," he said, so quietly she barely heard him. "I'm _lonely_."

*

"_I don't want to set the world on fire…" _the radio crooned on the floor below her and Nova staggered up and out of bed, not sure what had woken her, but knowing something important had.

"Ye think just because you've got some damn Vaultie lookin' after your scabrous ass you're too good for this place, 'ey?"

_Fuck_. Nova ran her fingers through her hair and started down the stairs. There wasn't much she could do when Moriarty got into one of his moods, but she could try. Even if it meant yet another black eye.

"_In my heart I have but one desire…"_

"Colin, baby," she called in her most seductive purr. "What's got you riled?"

"Riled?" he snorted as she came around the corner and Nova could see he was more shit-sober than he'd been in weeks, a horrible grin tugging at his weather-lined face. "_Me_? I'm not _riled_, Nova dear. I'm _fucking furious_. I just happened to check my finances this morning as I am wont to do now and again only to find that this _maggot_ _infested_ excuse for a _corpse_ has been _fucking stealing from me._"

"Honey—"

"Don't you fucking _honey_ me!" he snapped, his shoulders squared as he glowered at her. "You knew about this. Don't go denying it. I know damn well you too are like a bunch of fucking school girls when I'm not here to watch it. What'd he do with the money, Nova? Where the _hell_'d he put my money?"

Gob frowned, one hand twitching for the radio even as he stared Moriarty down.

"I didn't steal the money."

"_And with your admission that you feel the same…"_

"Didn't steal the money?" Moriarty laughed and spun, landing a solid right hook into his jaw. "Like fucking hell you didn't steal my money!"

"Gob doesn't _steal_, Colin," Nova said as she crossed the room. It wasn't much as far as a good defense went, but it was the only thing she could think of given the time. "What? You think he's going to pay you back with your own money?"

The man snorted and rocked backwards.

"No," he said at last with a short, bitter laugh. "No, I guess you're not fucking _clever_ enough for that, are you? It'd take real _balls_ to steal from me an' yours rotted off years back."

Gob glared, his fists clenching and unclenching as the radio continued to sing and Nova wondered if maybe he'd finally snap. Maybe it was more than the radio and the Vaultie and being trapped in this dead-end town with no way out.

Maybe it was _enough_.

"What'd you do with it then?" Moriarty continued, aiming a kick Gob sidled away from. "_Discounts_ probably. Givin' deals to your little tunnel rat, were you? What? She look at you with them big brown eyes of hers and ask real nice? Make you think you had a chance in hell, 'ey? Make you think she wouldn't _mind_ taking a _corpse_ to bed?"

"_I don't want to set the world on fire…"_

"_Fuck_ you," Gob growled, his shoulders square and that dangerous look in his eyes again. "Everybody knows you steal the damn stim-packs anyway."

"_I just want to start…"_

"Talk back to me, will ya?" Moriarty thundered with rage in his eyes. "I _own_ you, you festering son of a bitch. I _saved_ you from those damn slavers. You owe me your _life_ and _this_ is how you fucking repay me?"

"_A flame in your heart."_

He pulled his hand back to strike just as a small metallic _click_ broke the sudden, dusty silence. She hadn't heard the door open or noticed the blast of hot air that accompanied a customer. But the Vaultie stood in the doorway just the same, aiming her .44 with cool precision at a spot directly between Moriarty's eyes as Three Dog chattered in the empty space between songs.

She didn't say anything. No clichéd warnings or trite threats. Just continued to aim down the barrel of the gun with that calculating stare that kept no secrets. In that instant it was obvious just how little she liked Moriarty, just how well she knew the gun in her hand and just how _willing_ she was to pull the trigger.

This was not the girl that had popped out of the vaults with a charming sweet grin, smelling of rust and stale water. This was a woman that had seen a hundred deaths and caused a hundred more and was itching for the chance to rack up another.

"Back in the Vault," she said at last, her voice low and clear, "there's a thing called Citizen's Arrest. You see a crime but a guard's not around, you handle it yourself."

Moriarty changed gears like a man swimming from a mirelurk. The raging idiot was gone in a flash, replaced by a charming salesman with a wheedling, golden grin.

"Now don't go doing anything stupid, love," he soothed, hands out and open in front of him. But the Vaultie only grinned—a bearing of teeth Nova had seen once before on the Yao Guai that had dragged off her brother.

"Me and Simms were talking about it the other day, as a matter of fact," she continued, heedless. "And do you know what he told me?"

"Simms?" Moriarty tried to laugh. "Darling girl, Simms may think he's the law around here, but I'm the _mayor_. Now why don't you and I step into my office and have a nice chat about what's bothering you? I seem to remember there was somebody you were lookin' for…?"

"Found him," she said, gun and smile unwavering and for the first time, Nova wondered just how _sane_ the Vaultie really was. Because there was Wasteland stupid and then there was just plain suicidal. And for all intents and purposes, it looked like the kid was leaning towards the latter. But Gob had an angry glow in his eyes, feet apart and shoulders set—a fighter's stance—and she realized that even if the kid lowered her gun, Moriarty wasn't going to make it out of this one in one piece.

"Really? Good for you, lass!" Moriarty grinned, but it wavered like the water around the bomb. "Have a nice family reunion, did you?"

"Yeah, it was. Reallynice. _Productive_, you could say." She lowered her gun abruptly, pulling a slim disk from her pocket and holding it up instead. "He even gave me a _present_."

Something in the way she said it—something about the _gleam_ in her eyes belied the threat swimming just under the surface. Moriarty was a lot of things, but he wasn't an idiot and he damn sure knew his business.

He put his hands down slowly, looking like a man faced with the choice between a band of raiders and a nest of centaurs.

"What is it?"

"Your computer. Well," she said, and her grin _curled_ at the edges, "everything _on_ your computer anyway. Even the files you had hidden in the back-up drives. My dad's a real _whiz_ at science, you know. Said he broke a record with your computer. Hacked and downloaded in a minute flat."

Nova looked between the two of them and seeing the sick, pale hue Moriarty's face had taken on. She knew the disk wasn't what the kid said it was. It couldn't be. She'd sent a letter to her dad; she hadn't _met_ him. But then, when she'd first rolled in, Nova had seen the kid hack into Moriarty's computer with the ruthless efficiency of a child who'd had all the time in the world and only one thing to do with it.

She could have done it. She could have all the blackmail in the world stored on that disk or floating through the greenish cyberspace of her robotic cufflink.

She _had_ done it.

Unaccountably, Nova grinned. She felt like laughing in relief—in sheer, terrible joy. Because one way or another, Moriarty was finished. Maybe he'd get run out of town or blackmailed into submission. Or maybe he just wouldn't make it out of here alive. Because she had a feeling that Jericho and the Stahl boys would be only too happy to volunteer their time and lead pipes. And knowing them, they'd be just _tickled_ to take their time about it and really _savor_ the moment. Hell, they probably carry him down to the armory so no one would be bothered by the mess or the noise.

No more black eyes. No more bruises and broken fingers. No more stitching up the gashes Gob couldn't reach himself. No more sharing iced bottles of Nuka-cola to bring down the swelling. No more Moriarty.

She looked at the Vaultie, _really glad_ for the first time the kid had made it back and smiled as their eyes met through the hazy sunlight.

"Hey, Nova?" the kid said and tossed the disk through the space between them. "How would you like your own bar?"

*

It turned out, the Vaultie was better at business than she'd let on. Because somehow a copy of the disk was sitting stashed away in every corner of the world—a nifty little hack on her Pip-boy that would send the file out to every computer in Megaton should something happen to her. And somehow, it just so happened that both Andy Stahl and Lucas Simms had suddenly come into possession of working computer systems.

Nova grinned at Jericho as he stopped dead at the door, eyeing Moriarty with suspicion as the man stood like an angry statue behind the bar.

"Hey, honey," she purred, tilting her head to the side. "Wanna hook up later?"

He looked between the two of them and smirked.

"What about the business?" he asked, pulling out a cigarette to share.

"I was thinking of changing the sign outside. How does _Nova's_ sound?"

*

Nova watched from the stairs as Gob sat across the table from his Vaultie, the two of them leaning so close she could swear their foreheads were almost touching. She wasn't especially romantic—not much cause to be even without the business—but it was cute. Probably one of the first things she'd seen in weeks that didn't rank up there on her list of things that depressed the hell out of her.

"You sure?" Gob's voice wafted back to her.

The Vaultie laughed, looking ever so slightly embarrassed, and Nova swore she saw the beginnings of a blush creeping down from the tips of the kid's ears. She may have killed a hundred muties and god only knew what else, but she was still just a kid with only half a vault's worth of experience when it came to men.

"It's a big house, you know. Room for… people. Besides myself, I mean. And I've got loads of food. Not that I think you're too skinny, but Moriarty doesn't feed you near enough and most of it'll go bad before I get to it. My freezer doesn't work real well."

Gob smiled and Nova watched as his fingers crept over hers.

"I could fix that for you. Used to be a mechanic back when there was an army to be a mechanic for."

"That'd be great!" Her eyes lit and a grin split her face for a second before she remembered to look serious. "And if you hang around—I don't want to pressure you or anything—but you could watch the house for me when I'm gone."

Nova couldn't help laughing at that and ducked behind the curtains of the tiny bathroom to keep from drawing attention to herself. The kid was alright. Bat shit crazy, but alright. She kept her impossible promises and she made Gob laugh. Hell, she gave him _hope_. Even if it didn't work out, even if months—years—from now she ran off into the Wastes without a word, at least now he knew that somewhere there were still people out there worth a damn.

That didn't make their awkward flirting any less painful to watch though. Keep an eye on the house with the fully armed robot designed to kill intruders? Fix a fridge Moira had just installed a month ago?

Nova considered telling Gob to just _jump_ her already and sauntered from behind the curtain to do just that only to find the two of them already leaving.

And Gob had his arm around her waist.

Nova smiled and leaned back against the wall instead.

She'd let them figure it out.

End


End file.
